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Friday, 30 March 2012

In a recent assignment for one of Master’s courses I was
asked to look at leadership, curriculum and their connections.Before starting this assignment I decided to
have a discussion with my students about these two topics.When I asked the students about leadership
they listed off people that you would expect to hear, such as the teacher,
principal, and a coach.One student
stated that they could be a leader as well, that leaders were not just
adults.When I asked the students what
they thought curriculum was the first thing students said was Connected
Classrooms.

It was the discussion on curriculum that really got me
thinking about how much of a role Connected Classrooms plays in daily classroom
life.The Connected Classroom lessons
cover many different areas including reading, writing, oral language, fine
arts, technology, career and health development, as well as science and social
studies in some projects.From Moodle,
to shared lessons, to the inquiry projects, Connected Classrooms has become the
new curriculum of these three classrooms.

Later in the day, during a Connected Classroom lesson, I
looked around the room and noticed all of the leadership skills students had
developed as a result of this Connected Classrooms curriculum.The students had taken total control of the
lesson that day.The lead student had
set up and turned on all of the equipment, was leading the discussion and
moving around the room to allow other students to share, and was running the
classroom laptop to share out the work that we had done.As the lesson continued I saw students trying
new computer programs, students teaching and helping others with their
PowerPoints, and sharing information with each other on their research
projects.I was amazed at the leadership
the students were demonstrating, and the confidence they were showing with that
leadership.

The students see the learning and activities they do in this
new curriculum as being some of the most important, and most enjoyable, that
they do in the day.Looking around the
room and seeing the learning that is happening, it is hard to disagree.

Sunday, 11 March 2012

A few weeks back, our Connected Classroom in Lillooet was visited by Linda Kaiser and Judy Halbert as a part of the OECD's Innovative Learning Environments project. Last year, ECC had applied to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development to be among their universe of Innovative Learning Environments around the world. To get a better sense of the depth of our project, Judy and Linda joined the Cayoosh site during a video conference on digital photography and image editing.

Several students from the Lytton site actually led the lesson. Students gave a demo of the tools they were using to create their digital compositions, then explained the processes they used to create their unique digital compositions.

We thank Judy and Linda, and the OECD, for inclusion in their universe and are excited for what that inclusion may bring!